Rice Art

Summer time is time for outside art, so this time we tried something new. We have done sand art before where we dyed the sand using food coloring, we have also dyed pasta and used that in our artwork, but we have never tried dying rice and using it for art. So here's how it went:

I took 1 cup of rice and put it into a Ziploc bag, then added 3 tablespoons of vinegar.

Then I added about 5 drops of food coloring and sealed the bag tightly. I smashed the bag all around getting the color to transfer to the rice evenly. My bag opened up a few times on me (The kids had no idea I was doing this while they were playing outside so we didn't have any issues there).

I let the rice sit for a few minutes in their bags once they were the colors were thoroughly mixed.

Then I poured each color into its own tray to dry. I let it sit outside to dry overnight. Because I used vinegar, the smell was really strong. You could use rubbing alcohol instead of vinegar, but I don't know that the odor would be any less intense.

The next day, the rice was ready to go (no more odor) and so were the kids. I cut out some cardboard off of some old cereal boxes to use as our paper. You might even want to try a thicker cardboard since this project uses a lot of glue! At first, Lou wasn't so sure what to do. I just told her it was like sand art and she could make whatever she wanted. The first thing she usually creates is a rainbow, so here she goes again. This time there were some nice circles in the middle though.

Mina was thrilled that she was going to be able to use glue again. It was a first for her the other day and she really liked doing that part herself. She stuck with yellow only for the first bit.

Then added a little orange.

She was very good at dumping the excess into the tray between colors.

On Lou's second piece of art, she decided to layer the rice. She also decided she didn't need the cap on the glue. Yes, hers took a little longer to dry, but they all turned out great.

Just found this and I want to say thank you! I was looking for something easy, safe and fun for my 3 and 1.5 year olds to do. Most crafts are suitable to one or the other. Cutting cardboard into tree shapes and letting them decorate Christmas trees as special gifts.